Task Failed Successfully

Learning From Failure

I’ve failed many, many times, especially since I graduated with my undergraduate degree. I’ve failed all throughout my life, even failing to show up on time for my own birth. I have failed several exams and countless competitions and school/job applications. And of course, I’ve failed in more nebulous ways, like failing to be the “best” in my social circle, failing to live up to the expectations of others, failing to have been in a romantic relationship, and failing to uphold my duties in relationships. I’m a fairly experienced failer.

I know I’m not nearly the most successful failer though in the sense that my failures pale in comparison to many, many others’. So it’s a strange phenomenon that failure is still so taboo, if not across all civilization then at least within both American and Chinese cultures (from personal experience). At least on the American side, we seem to be getting better at acknowledging failure. Entrepreneurs talk about “failing fast” or “failing upwards”. Professionals share stories of personal and professional failures. Social scientists talk about the importance of vulnerability and authenticity and self-compassion. Still, there’s something of a heavy blanket lying over the topic of failure. Just looking at my LinkedIn feed gives me the ick and shuts me down because of the toxic positivity on there. It’s like being made to stare at a bright green neon screen when you already have a hangover; it’s too much, and you kind of know it’s fake.

I can think of a couple of reasons why failure is still so taboo. First, there may be a feeling (which might be justified) that publicly signaling failures is costly. Maybe it really doesn’t look good to most employers to be saying “I failed to get X grant” or “I was laid off from Y job”. It’s definitely beneficial to signal success—evidenced by the fact that people will lie and cheat to signal successes they didn’t actually achieve. Between these two forces, it’s no wonder that LinkedIn is full of success stories and achievements and bereft of failure stories… with the exception of failure stories which end up being success in overcoming failure stories. Second, failing is bad in that, in a vacuum and assuming objective X is a good thing, succeeding at X is better than failing at X. There is a certain sense in which it makes—or at least made—pragmatic sense to be so punitive and frightened of failure.

However, the world isn’t a vacuum, X isn’t always a good thing, and we are not equipped with omniscience and omnipotence. So sometimes failing is good in that it guides us to something better. And perhaps most importantly, there are many cases in which people give a very good effort towards and care a lot about succeeding at what they do, and many of these efforts are still met with failure.

Failure is intrinsically difficult. When we really care about something and really go after it and invest a lot of time and effort into it, it by its nature sucks when we don’t get the return we were looking for. It’s tough to even watch someone’s dreams get crushed, and I’m pretty sure many of us have learned to have a visceral response to the words “we regret to inform you…”. I think that our collective taboo against openly talking about failure makes things much worse. One of the worst aspects of any kind of suffering, including that caused by failure, is feeling alone in it. Yet for some reason, it seems so common that people think they are alone in failing. Even though I know it’s not true, I feel that feeling all the time. Having others acknowledge the failure and encourage me through it has been immensely helpful, and I wish there was more of that in the world at large.

I also think we could do better in how we process failure, both on an individual and a societal level. When we do acknowledge failure, it feels like it becomes some huge thing. Failure becomes “my life is over, my career is ruined, I am and always will be a failure”. And sure, some failures are big enough that they do ruin lives and careers. But a lot of failures—even pretty big ones—don’t. Failing 100+ times to get a job didn’t ruin my life, except insofar as it ate away at my confidence and mental wellness. My decision-making failures—some of which I would in hindsight classify as blunders—didn’t even completely close off my top career path, let alone ruin my chances of having a good career. I know these things to be true, but I often forget. As an individual, one of the best things I can do for myself is to remind myself of these things, and to change my patterns of thinking. As a society, I think one of the best things we can do is to normalize failing. Not only to have more discussions about it, but to really act as if failure is something normal. It certainly won’t be easy, but maybe a start would be to have our educational programs teach kids how to fail. Have schools conduct workshops and discussions about how to deal with failure for the self and others. Support programs which let kids put themselves wholeheartedly into some endeavor and which let them make mistakes and fail. Educate parents and educators on how they can best support a kid who is dealing with failure. And so on.

I’ve told people before that I’m not naturally gifted at real-world stuff the way I am with academics, but maybe what I’m really not naturally gifted at is failing. As a kid, I was pretty withdrawn from extracurricular activities, and I think a lot of that was because I didn’t like new and uncertain environments where I didn’t feel in control. Even within activities, I was pretty averse to failing and trying new things. I never did mogul tricks as a skier because I was afraid of the loss of control and the possibility of tumbling into the snow. There were so many things I gave up on or never tried or never pursued further because I was afraid of losing control and suffering because of failure. I think especially in high school and the early part of college that if I had been more willing to fail and had failed at more things, I would ultimately have been more satisfied with how I’d used my time there. And though the previous year has been full of failures and mistakes, they have come with a silver lining. There were a few times where I was close to being offered a job before I was ultimately rejected. Failing to get those positions forced me to explore the world and develop myself in a way that I might not have been forced to had I gotten one of those jobs. If I had gotten one of the earlier jobs I’d really wanted, I might never have started this Substack. That’s not to say that I want to be always failing or that I’d reject a good opportunity for the sake of building character. But even if it wasn’t what I had hoped for, maybe there’s something I can learn from it now, and maybe it will ultimately lead to something better. So the way I’m trying to look at things right now is that in failing and blundering and making a fool of myself so much in the year since I graduated, I became more successful than ever in an area I had much room for improvement in. I failed successfully.